


It Starts with an Earthquake

by rosa_himmelblau



Category: Twin Peaks, Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-20 21:14:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19384783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: The FBI is a large, strange organization filled with disparate agents.





	It Starts with an Earthquake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bientot](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bientot).



"The man is an idiot! A mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal! And what I want to know isn't how or why he got put in charge, what I want to know is why it's always mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal idiots who are put in charge! Can you explain that to me?"

Frank abruptly stopped walking, and Vince, who'd been looking over his shoulder towards where the ranting was coming from, ran into him. "Why are you stopping? I thought we were going to lunch," Vince said, trying to get Frank back on track. Even from looking at the back of his head, he knew that Frank was pissed, and what he was pissed about: the voice. It was unmistakable, it was loud and grating and it carried like a foghorn. And for some reason it made Frank want to hit something. Or someone.

"Frank, you're grinding your teeth again," Vince said helpfully.

"Leave me alone," Frank muttered.

"What this government agency needs is a purge, starting at the top and not stopping until every fool has been excised like the malignant tumors they are! Then maybe, just maybe they'll stop wasting my valuable time with these useless—"

Frank was bristling, like a small dog about to attack. Vince took hold of his arm. "You promised me lunch," he said pointedly. "You're buying me lunch."

"His valuable time," Frank muttered. " **His** valuable time?? What does that mean? That his is the only time that's valuable?" Frank's voice was rising above a mutter and people were starting to glance their way. Vince pulled harder, dragging him towards the elevator.

 

Frank was in a snit. Of course, it being Frank, it was sort of like a snit fueled with jet propellant, a thermonuclear snit. Frank in a snit was scarier than most people in a towering rage. So instead of going to a restaurant where they could sit in air conditioning, out of DC's July heat, Vince had driven them to a hamburger joint with a drive-thru, so they could sit in the hot car and eat their food while Frank ranted about the inequities of the world. Frank hadn't even noticed. He was busy going on.

"Does it make any sense to you?" Frank demanded.

"No, Frank, it doesn't," Vinnie said around a mouthful of hamburger. He'd already made up his mind that if Frank hadn't started on his food by the time he'd finished his, he was going to eat Frank's as well.

"He does this all the time! He goes off on these loud, obnoxious, public diatribes, and what happens?"

Vince, assuming this was a rhetorical question, didn't answer.

"What happens?" Frank insisted.

"Oh. Nothing," Vince said. "Nothing happens."

"That's right, nothing happens! When Albert Rosenfeld, at the top of his lungs, tells the world that the Federal Bureau of Investigation needs a purge, he isn't dragged into the AG's office and told he isn't a team player! Is he?" Frank demanded.

Not wanting to take a chance this time, Vince answered, "No, Frank, he isn't." Vince did not add that telling Albert Rosenfeld that he wasn't a team player made as much sense as telling Vince Terranova he wasn't a ballerina: it hardly seemed necessary, and it certainly wasn't something he'd been aspiring to.

"But if I make a suggestion that these meetings are inefficient, what happens?"

"You're taken to the dungeon and thrashed within an inch of your life," Vince said, testing out a theory.

"I didn't yell it at the top of my lungs, I spoke quietly—privately—to—"

Vince was right; it didn't really matter what he said because Frank wasn't listening to him. As long as he said something, Frank would be satisfied.

"—told me I wasn't a team player!" As though Frank had ever aspired to be a team player himself.

"With that attitude, you'll never make quarterback," Vince said. "And none of the cheerleaders will go out with you."

"But Albert Rosenfeld can do whatever he damn well feels like, and what happens to him?"

"People avoid him like the plague?" Vince said, though he didn't think that had anything to do his criticism of the hierarchy of the FBI. "Everyone but Cooper," he amended. Vince didn't understand Dale Cooper, and it wasn't because of his peculiar friendship with Albert Rosenfeld. It wasn't even because Cooper didn't seem like an FBI agent so much as the guy they'd get to put on the cover of _Today's FBI,_ if such a publication existed. It was because he didn't exactly seem like he was from this planet. He was an excellent agent, but he was—he was—

Vince didn't know what he was, he was the kind of guy who'd do those puzzles where the pieces are all white on both sides. But that didn't explain why Cooper was friends with Albert Rosenfeld when no one else could stand him. And he had the sneaking suspicion that Cooper wasn't really smarter than everybody else, he just had sharper creases, the kind you could slice tomatoes on, you should pardon the expression. Vince didn't know when or how that had gotten to be the most important attribute for judging a man's importance. Maybe he should mention it to Albert, give him something else to rant about. Why should being able to will your suit to hold a crease or your hair not to move in a breeze—without lacquering it to your head—be any kind of virtue?

Frank did have a point about Albert. Frank was hard to get along with, and sometimes Vince wondered why **he** was friends with him, beyond their working relationship. But other people liked Frank too, he did have friends in the Bureau. If he'd had half an idea of how to play politics—or half an interest in doing it—he could have risen a lot further than he had.

Albert was like human sandpaper, grating on everyone he met.

"Are you listening to me?" Frank asked, overflowing with indignation.

Vince must've missed another question. "Not really." he admitted. "I've seen this movie before." Before Frank could yell at him anymore, Vince said, "Maybe it's because he's got an M.D. after his name."

"You think he gets more respect because he cuts up dead people?" Frank asked incredulously.

"No, I thought people left him alone because he carries a scalpel! I don't think this has anything to do with respect," Vince said. "But maybe we could put some letters after your name, see if it helps. You could be a Ph.D."

Anyone else getting that look from Frank would get out of the car immediately and start running. Vince took Frank's going-cold hamburger out of his hand and took a bite, then spat it out. "Pickles? Since when do you get pickles on your burger?"

"Give that back to me," Frank said, and Vince did.

"I don't understand what the problem is, Frank. I know you agree with everything he says, so why do you get so worked up when he says it?"

"Why do I—" Frank seemed rendered speechless by this question.

"Eat your food," Vince suggested.

Instead, Frank said, "Why are they listening to him when they don't listen to me?"

"Listening to him? Frank, Albert is like that test of the Emergency Broadcast System: he's loud and obnoxious and you can't avoid hearing him, but nobody actually listens to him. People listen to you. Maybe that's why you're not allowed to throw fits in the halls of the Hoover Building."

Frank considered that as he opened his hamburger to remove the pickles he hadn't ordered. Once that was done, he took a bite. Vince tried for one of his lukewarm onion rings, but Frank slapped his hand away.

"You think that's the reason?" Frank asked. He started to take a sip of his coffee shake, made a face; it had melted.

"Yeah, I think that's probably the reason. People think Rosenfeld's a talented nut job, so nobody listens to him. You want another shake?"

"In this heat, it'll just melt," Frank said, and he sounded like his usual gloomy self, so all was right with the world again.

"Not if we go inside," Vince said. "It's cool inside, and since you've dialed down your volume, we can be around civilized people again."

"Yeah, let's go inside," Frank agreed. Vince was grateful that it was Frank he was stuck with. It couldn't be easy being Cooper, trying to deal with Albert. even with that perfectly creased look and that Zen attitude,

 

Frank got another small coffee shake, and Vince got another large vanilla shake and his own order of onion rings, which he graciously allowed Frank to have two of.

"You're right about one thing," Frank said.

"Which things wasn't I right about?" Vince asked.

Frank ignored that question. "I do agree with practically everything Rosenfeld said."

For some reason, these words did not give Vince a warm and fuzzy feeling.

"Maybe I should get to know him better," Frank said.

For one dark, disturbing moment Vinnie thought about Sonny, who had often said that when he was going to talk to someone who was causing him problems. What he meant was that he wanted to see if the guy needed killing or would a threat or a good beating do the trick.

But Frank was, thank God, not Sonny, Frank literally meant he wanted to get to know Albert Rosenfeld better.

For about six seconds Vinnie felt better until this idea sank in. Frank McPike and Albert Rosenfeld combining forces? Vince got chill not caused by the milk shake or the air conditioning, but by a sudden flash of the end of the world as we know it. Maybe he'd see if Cooper wanted to go get a drink. Even someone of his unflappable nature would have to be flapped by the impending implosion of the world around them.

**Author's Note:**

> You remember when I asked for prompts, back in January? I finally did one!


End file.
